How BuzzFeed Breathed New Life Into Insight Email Newsletters

Most people have either a love affair or an intense hatred for the phenomenon that is BuzzFeed – but one thing all marketers must realize is that the relatively new medium has done great things for insight email marketing. 

They’ve Helped Us Become Better Email Marketers

How? 

Well, did you know that BuzzFeed sends out its own wildly successful email newsletter and their targets love them and share them vigorously? It’s a fact - BuzzFeed is a huge lover and transformer of the traditional email newsletter and we could all stand to learn from their work. 

Unlike the countless BF quizzes and memes and lists no doubt clogging up your social media feeds, the BuzzFeed email newsletters takes the one-and-done approach – literally, only one email newsletter is sent each and every day. 

They Create Niche Content With Mass Appeal

Buzzfeed knows they make great content that people love and love to share – and they capitalize on this fact with their insight emails. By knowing (by strictly filtered opt-in criteria) the type of content their prospects want and want to share, Buzzfeed is able to send highly filtered and, frankly, catered email newsletters to each and every target on a daily basis. How? They create a master list of newsletter content that’s labeled and sorted internally by type and topic. 

Think of these individual pieces of content as building blocks of a target’s perfect once-per-day newsletter. If the target loves celebrity gossip and health news, then that’s precisely what they’ll get – and share. It’s a genius insight email formula that we all could stand to learn from – and replicate in ways that are uniquely suited to our own aims. 

At Buzzfeed, there are up to 14 different segmented lists of email newsletter target types – and this is only expected to expand. The growth of these niche-style newsletters has continued to be strong – and the reason is their audiences view them as being great content. 

They Don’t Skimp On Mobile

BuzzFeed also makes certain that their daily newsletters are easy to read on any and every device. Sure, many of their targets read their insight emails at their desks (a fact they know thanks to email open and link tracking), but just as many if not more read these email newsletters on the go, most often on their mobile phones. The design is responsive and the links are clickable – and the content itself is uncluttered and exciting from the word go, thus prompting more full readings and link clicks throughout the email.

So, the next time you see your twentieth “Very Best Ice Bucket Challenge In The History Of All Things” or another cat riding on a motorized vacuum, remember, there’s more to BuzzFeed than meets the eye – and we all can stand to learn from what’s made them so (and oftentimes obnoxiously) successful.